EPA Dismisses Half the Scientists on Its Major Review Board (nymag.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A few weeks after the election, pro-Trump commentator Scottie Nell Hughes heralded the dawn of a new era when she declared, "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts." In the age of Trump there's little need for people who've devoted their lives to studying scientific facts, and over the weekend the administration finally got around to dismissing some of them. According to the Washington Post, about half of the 18 members on the Environmental Protection Agency's Board of Scientific Counselors have been informed that their terms will not be renewed. The academics who sit on the board advise the EPA's scientific board on whether its research is sound. The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term. But on Friday some received emails from the agency informing them that their first three-year term was up and they would not be renominated. Republican members of Congress have complained for some time that the Board of Scientific Counselors, as well as the 47-member Science Advisory Board, just rubber-stamp new EPA regulations. A spokesman for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt confirmed that he's thinking of replacing the academics with industry experts (though the EPA is supposed to be regulating those companies). Gretchen Goldman, research director at the Center for Science and Democracy, expressed her disappointment and asked, "What's the scientific reason for removing these individuals from this EPA science review board? It is rare to see such a large scale dismissal even in a presidential transition. The EPA is treating this scientific advisory board like its members are political appointees when these committees are not political positions. The individuals on these boards are appointed based on scientific expertise not politics. This move by the EPA is inserting politics into science."

Comments

try worrying about pollution

[avandesande]

Lead in poor peoples drinking water for starters

So dismissed means not renewed for a second term?

[Anonymous Coward]

When has not being renewed for your a second term equal dismissed? If they were guaranteed employment for six years and they were let go half way through that would be dismissed. Being told by the way we are not going to renew your contract, and maybe to save money we will offshore these positions... I wonder what other industry's hear that.

Not political?

[mi]

The EPA is treating this scientific advisory board like its members are political appointees when these committees are not political positions. The individuals on these boards are appointed based on scientific expertise not politics.

Could someone name two or three of the dismissed people, for whom he can vouch that they do not have a Che Guevara T-shirt?

All Cretans are liars

[Hognoxious]

she declared, "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts"

Before adding, "apart from that one, obviously."

Re: Brain surgery

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. Next we can get rid of all basketball rules and let the market decide who wins. Then I want less Copernicans on advisory boards to more accurately reflect the controversy regarding whether or not the Earth goes around the sun.